Topic: Principals & School Leaders
Principals & School Leaders
In the last century, school principals were expected to focus primarily on management and administration. Today, schools need instructional leaders who improve the learning and achievement of both students and teachers in their schools. SREB offers school improvement, professional development and technical assistance to serve this objective.
The Eisenhower Matrix: A Tool to Help School Leaders Focus Their Time
The Eisenhower Matrix can help busy leaders make the most of their limited time to get things done. During World War II the matrix helped General Dwight Eisenhower plan and carry out the most complex military operation in history, the D-Day invasion of Normandy. He used it as a tool to ensure that he spent his time on the right work.
In This Together: How States Foster Safe Learning Environments
As legislatures convene regular sessions, we at SREB have observed an uptick in bills focused on school safety. Some propose dramatic changes in the way school districts hire and train security personnel, develop emergency plans, or address students’ mental and emotional health. Others make technical changes to standing laws in order to lower the barriers districts face in creating safe learning environments.
What Research Studies and State Policies Address Incentives to Recruit and Retain Effective Principals?
Getting it Right
Designing Principal Preparation Programs that Meet District Needs for Improving Low-Performing Schools
A Technical Report on Innovative Principal Preparation Models
Southern Regional Education Board
Classroom Time
Educator Effectiveness Spotlight
Competing priorities and increasing responsibilities mean principals are finding it harder to spend quality time in classrooms, in addition to formal observations. One Tennessee principal is navigating these challenges in thoughtful and productive ways.
Unsung Heroes of America’s Schools
Assistant principals are critical to school success
Assistant principals supervise the hallways and the lunchrooms. They observe teachers and coordinate testing. They serve as the first line of response for discipline referrals, guide wayward students with humor and compassion — and do their best to make their principals look good.
It’s a lot, but most assistant principals truly love their jobs and know that what they do is critical to their school’s success.
Highly Qualified Turnaround Leaders Emerge in Florida
The Florida Turnaround Leaders Program is a big hit in Florida that will ultimately result in better principals, better schools, and higher-performing students. “This program has provided the best professional development I have ever experienced in my 25 years as an educator,” said one participant.
Turnaround High School Principals
Recruit, Prepare and Empower Leaders of Change
The publication takes an in-depth look at the kinds of principals required to turn around the lowest-performing 5 to 10 percent of public high schools in America. Schools stuck at the bottom of the performance chart need first-rate principals with the motivation, vision, skill and commitment to make dramatic improvements in schools and student achievement. The report describes how we can identify, prepare and support these turnaround principals.
Who’s Next?
Let's Stop Gambling on School Performance and Plan for Principal Succession
Each year, more than 18,000 principals in our nation’s public schools leave their jobs. Decades of school leadership research make it clear that these vacancies must be filled immediately and must be filled with school leaders who have the strength of character, the knowledge about learning and the leadership savvy to thrive in what is arguably education’s most challenging job. But who is next?
A Kentucky Principal Defines School Leadership
Educator Effectiveness Spotlight
A Kentucky principal returns to her school after a year-long journey supporting her district’s roll-out of a new educator evaluation system. She shares her experiences supporting 22 schools and insights on what it means to be a school leader.
We Know What Works in the Middle Grades
Smart District Leadership Can Make It Happen
In this report, SREB compares schools in the MMGW initiative that have more fully implemented the MMGW research-based design with others that have been defined as low-implementation schools. The report shows clear differences in the achievement levels and academic success of these two groups of schools. The report also shows that dynamic, sustainable middle grades reform is far more likely to occur when district leaders, principal leaders and teacher leaders are all committed to the same improvement goals and means of achieving them.
Florida Middle School Creates Success Academy
Pinellas Park Middle School is about as challenging a school as
you can find in Florida. The state has assigned it a grade of D
for the past several years. All of its students receive free
lunch. Twenty-three percent of its students have already been in
some form of drop-out prevention program prior to enrolling at
Pinellas Park.
The Three Essentials
Improving Schools Requires District Vision, District and State Support, and Principal Leadership
This report describes the findings of SREB’s study of the role of the district office in creating the working conditions that principals need to improve teacher effectiveness and student performance. The Three Essentials of school improvement described in the report emerged from close observations of the inner workings of seven school districts, as SREB’s Learning-Centered Leadership Program sought to answer this essential question: What are the conditions school districts can create that make it possible for principals to be more effective in leading school improvement?
Developing Collaborative University-District Partnerships to Prepare Learning-Centered Principals
The purpose of a university-district partnership for the preparation and development of principals is to provide all schools leadership that results in improved student learning. In order to be successful, both parties in the partnership will have to relinquish control over areas which have traditionally been the sole responsibility of one of the parties.
Good Principals Aren’t Born – They’re Mentored
Are We Investing Enough to Get the School Leaders We Need?
Good Principals Aren’t Born – They’re Mentored draws on survey data from a sample of seasoned principal mentors who have guided interns in university-based principal preparation programs in the SREB region. This report lays out a course of action for policymakers and leaders of universities and school districts to ensure that every beginning principal comes to the job fully prepared to make a difference in teaching and learning.